The Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday, January 18, 2026

       I’m willing to bet - and I’m not saying this to scold anyone – that you didn’t tune in all that closely to that reading from First Corinthians. It was pretty much one sentence, and a complex one at that. Listen again: “Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy, with all those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.” As I said, pretty complex and maybe not all that riveting. But suppose it had read like this: “Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God…to the Church of God that is in Seattle at St. James Cathedral, to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy.” Now, that might have gotten your attention!

        The truth is, of course, that those words of St. Paul are addressed to us as much as they were to the people of Corinth a couple of millennia ago. After all, we, too have been ‘sanctified in Christ Jesus,’ and we, too, are ‘called to be holy. That’s what our baptism and our life of faith are all about. We are called and we are sanctified - made holy - by the Christ who lives within us. Lives within us. Think of that!

        And who is this Christ? John the Baptist revealed that to us in the gospel reading. He is the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The reference to Jesus as ‘lamb’ reaches way back into the Jewish scriptures, to one of the so-called Suffering Servant Poems in Isaiah where a mysterious Servant is crushed for the offenses of the people, humbly submitting like a lamb to the slaughter. And through his sufferings, the people are made whole. By his wounds they are healed.

         It’s not surprising that the Church has always seen Jesus in that mysterious suffering servant of Isaiah, Jesus who humbly submitted to his sufferings like a lamb led to the slaughter, opening not his mouth. And, like the servant of the poem, Jesus brings justice to the nations, light to all peoples.

        So, Jesus is the Lamb of God. We get that. We address him that way at every Mass. But did you notice that John the Baptist, in so proclaiming him, said that the Lamb of God takes away the ‘sin’ of the world. Sin, not sins. John is not talking so much about personal, individual sins; no, he’s talking about corporate, communal sin: the wholesale rejection and opposition in our world to God and to all that God is; he’s talking about the fundamental sin within human history whereby people turn their backs on God and the ways of God.

        Jesus came into the world to change all that; to take away the sin of the world, to make this a world where God’s reign, God’s rule, can take root, take over, a world where God’s love can come to life in every human person, a world where justice and peace are there for everyone.

        And that’s where we come in, my friends. The task of taking away the sin of the world is something Jesus shares with us. John baptized with water; Jesus baptized with the Holy Spirit and, my friends, that same Spirit has been poured out upon us. In our baptism.

        These are timely thoughts on this Martin Luther King weekend. There was someone who understood Jesus as the Lamb of God, someone who was willing to accept suffering instead of inflict it. In so doing, he absorbed the hatred, discrimination, violence that came his way – absorbed them and transformed them into peace and love.

        Back in 1963, a time of deep racial unrest and violence, Dr. King spoke in measured but impassioned tones these memorable words in a Birmingham church: “We must say to our white brothers and sisters…who try to keep us down, we shall match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with spirit force. We will not hate and, yet, we cannot in good conscience obey your evil laws. Do to us what you will. Threaten our children and we will still love you. Say that we’re too low, too degraded, and we will still love you. Bomb our homes. Go by our churches in the morning and bomb them…. We will still love you. We will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. In winning the victory, we will win, not only our freedom, we will so appeal to your heart and your conscience that we will win you in the process.”

        My friends, Martin Luther King understood what we mean when we call Jesus the Lamb of God. He understood that the only way to end violence and hatred is to be that Lamb: to courageously accept evil with love as Jesus did. It may sound impractical in a world riddled with war and violence but Dr. King was convinced that non-violence was the most powerful weapon: not nuclear arms, not weapons of mass destruction, not drones or missiles. Or bombs  No, they only end up creating greater violence in an endless, vicious cycle.

        Dear friends in Christ, this weekend, as we celebrate Dr. King’s memory, we will do well to listen to his words which are as pertinent today as the day he spoke them. We have only to look at the currents of racism and white nationalism that still swiri around us – not only in this country but around the world. They are out of control and are utterly antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Only when we heed Dr. King’s words and embrace his gospel of non-violence – which is the gospel of Jesus - will we be joining in the daunting task of taking away the sin of the world! 

Father Michael G. Ryan